At the centre of Bleak House is the long-running legal case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, inspired by a real-life Chancery case, which came about because someone wrote several conflicting wills, which than led to numerous family feuds, schemes and murder. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic.

He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.